The Great Injustice
by itslukey
Summary: A conversation between Ana Lucia and Jack following Collision, episode 8 of season 2. Ana Lucia-centric, deals with her trust issues with the Others and with the survivors. Despite being accepted by Jack, she finds herself more alone than ever.


Exhausted. She had recounted to him everything that had happened to them. Everything that had happened to her since she had left Jack at the bar, promising him another drink on the plance and that life was only going to get better. She told him about the ones that had been terrorising them, about the man that had infiltrated their group and killed on of their own, the man who Ana Lucia eventually killed. Of her fellow tail-end survivors that had been abducted by these people, the ones that Mr. Eko had killed, the ones that had only, just a few hours earlier, confused her into killing an innocent young woman.

Jack had been playing golf.

He did not say much to this. She guessed that he was thinking about the same thing she was; were his fellow survivors going to be more shocked by Shannon's death, or that fact that Jack had invited her killer to stay with them at their camp?

The signs were not good. It seemed she had already lost the faith of the ones she had spent the last 48 days surviving with. Bernard was not so much of a surprise, Ana Lucia could concede as much. Since she had rescued him from the tree he had landed in on the day of the crash, the two had agreed on very little. It was Ana Lucia who took the radio from him when they received a signal on the radio they had found in the bunker. Despite seeing now that it probably could have been actual survivors of their flight who had sent the distress call, Ana still maintained that she had acted correctly, as a true leader, in ignoring the call. Her group was vulnerable, and they could not afford to trust anything but each other any more.

Bernard had also expressed doubt over Ana Lucia's decisions to suspect and imprison Nathan, and in retrospect, Ana Lucia could see why. Maybe Bernard _had_ seen Goodwin arrive at their crash site from wherever he had departed from, and therefore knew the identity of the person who had been sabotaging their survival the whole time. This only made Ana Lucia trust Bernard less.

Losing Libby's trust was a much bigger blow to Ana Lucia. She had agreed with Ana all throughout their early issues with Nathan, and it was Libby's concerns about him that urged Ana Lucia to act even faster about it. So it confused Ana when Libby was so adamant about helping these people that they barely knew. Wanting to help the man with the gunshot wound who was impossible to get along with to get to the doctor. Or untying the man that Ana had just provoked into trying to kill her, the one who had needed more than a few tackles from a man as big as Eko in order to be restrained.

She might even feel threatened by Libby, Ana thought. The woman had proved useful to the group with her medical experience, however limited, and she was definitely more skilled in the art of communication than Ana Lucia. If one thing was certain with their arrival at the beach camp, it was that Libby would have no problem fitting in, even becoming popular, among the other crash survivors. _She'll definitely last longer than me_, Ana Lucia thought.

Mr. Eko's decision to take Sawyer to the doctor had confused Ana, along with his decision to bring the doctor back to her, but her confusion did not surprise her. Inspiring confusion just seemed like something that Eko enjoyed doing to people. But now she was interested, maybe even looking forward, to seeing just how Eko would integrate among these other survivors. The man had problems coping with a group as small as the remaining tail-end survivors, and there were supposedly around 40 people at this beach camp.

Compared to Ana's situation, however, Eko could have expected to be welcomed with open arms. He had betrayed her stubbornness in order to save Sawyer's life, and she had just murdered one of their people. For the last 48 days, Ana Lucia had faced the problem of not knowing who to trust, and now she was experiencing what it was like not knowing who trusted her. Ana wondered if Shannon was popular, if everyone from her camp loved her, thought of her as someone whose death would leave them irreversibly empty and hateful. Then Ana wondered why that would be important at all, why she even began to think that it might change what these people thought of her if they hated Shannon.

It reminded Ana of the walk back to her camp after she had killed Goodwin. He had told her that Nathan was a bad person, and that almost convinced her that everything she had done to Nathan was justified. But that would mean trusting the word of the person that had been betraying them since the day they crashed on this Island. She hoped Jack would forgive her for not trusting the next good-looking guy that smiled and assured her that everything was going to be OK.

She also thought about the way she felt when she killed Goodwin. As an ex-police officer, it was not the first time she had taken a life, and it was also not the first time she had done so outside of the line of duty. But compared to the feeling of complete emptiness she had experienced right after pumping six bullets into the man who had stolen her future, Ana felt something for what she had done to Goodwin. It did not quite compare to the sensation of complete regret that hit her as she saw Sayid holding Shannon's limp body in his arms, but time she spent with Goodwin gave her the image of a human that may have been loved by someone.

After she had untied Sayid from his restraints, she had given him the opportunity to take her life, offered him her complete repentance. It was the closest she had ever come to apologising for taking someone's life.

"Jack," She was the first to speak since the two had begun their journey to the beach camp. "Have you ever felt the overwhelming need to say sorry to someone?" Appropriate that she would ask a question now, since he had spent the last 45 minutes interrogating her.

"Just a few months before the crash," It was nearly half a minute before he replied. "I was at work. A Nurse came to me, told me to go to the operating theatre because my father was operating on a woman who'd had a crash. She said his hands were shaking, and that I should probably go and take over. I tried my best, but she had a heart attack and died right there. My father was drunk, and because of that a young woman and her unborn child died."

Ana stopped wanting to hear his story, but she did not say anything. Although she would not look at Jack, she heard him sniff a few times. Maybe he was crying.

"We made an official report of her death, me and my father, but at the last second I changed my statement. I knew it would ruin my father's career, his life, but I couldn't stop thinking about the woman's husband. How I saw my father tell him that everything possible had been done to save his family. I couldn't continue to lie for my father. So he lost his job and he ran away. Sydney. Drank so much that the next time I saw him after my mother told me where he was, he was in a body bag. I'm not sorry that I told the truth," He sniffed again. "I'm sorry that he died thinking that I betrayed him. That I ruined his life."

Ana was not good in situation like this. She wanted to lift the mood, say something about having the drink they agreed to have on the plane. She decided to let him have that one, though, when he decided they were comfortable enough to use it.

"Is that why you became a doctor?" She asked, deciding to stay on the subject. "You wanted to be like your dad?"

"I don't know," he replied, pausing to think. "I guess that's the way it started. Maybe it's just the way it was always supposed to be. I look at who my father became - it's not the person I want to be any more."

"I can see your point," Ana said. "My mom's a police officer. I grew up always thinking I had to do something about all the bad people in the world, all the injustice. I guess that comes from always hearing her complaining about the stuff she had to put up with at work. I suppose she's still the woman I wanna be. Seems only now I'm one of those people doing bad things." She laughed, slightly. "I don't think I'm destined to do good in this world."

Jack did not say anything to this. Ana was not sure if he was still reeling from speaking so openly about his father, or if he agreed with her last statement but did not want to offend her by saying so.

"Well, there was this one girl," She began, feeling as if she had to defend herself against her own allegation. "Right after the crash. She couldn't be more than seven. I thought she'd drowned, but her younger brother was there and I didn't wanna see him cry. So I kept going, and eventually she starts coughing up water. I saved her life."

But she stopped, thinking about where the girl might be now. Once again, Jack's silence spoke volumes. She knew he wanted to say, 'but she's not with you any more, and neither is her brother'.

Ana began to think, about whether she had really saved that girl's life at all. Maybe it would have been best just to let the water in her lungs take her, allow the terror of a plane splitting apart in mid-air and crashing into the ocean to be the most trauma the little girl would ever witness. If that was what Ana should have done, then perhaps dying in that crash was the best she could have hoped for herself as well.

Perhaps being alive was the great injustice of Ana Lucia's life.


End file.
